| # | Name | Comments |
|---|
| 351 | Bill Benet | Why I support Senator Obama
In 2004 I ran (unsuccessfully) as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention pledged to Dennis Kucinich. Until early this year I continued to support Dennis because his positions on the issues most closely match mine. However, prior to the New York Primary, I switched my support to Barack Obama.
The human species, having come to dominate our planet, now stands at a crossroads. We are at a point where our own actions threaten the very survival of our species and perhaps all species on the planet. We are confronted by four great threats to our survival. I believe it is entirely possible that unless we take significant action within the next ten years, any of these four threats may reach a tipping point where our survival is no longer within our hands.
The first great threat is the escalating catastrophic destruction of our environment, most exemplified by man-made global warming. Second is the barbaric violence unleashed around the world through a belief in, and embracing of, militarism by so many nations and peoples, particularly the US. Third is the crushing poverty and joblessness for vast numbers of people on our planet resulting in increasing starvation and sickness among the worlds’ poor. Fourth is the deliberate inculcation among the general public of nihilism, despair, resignation, passivity, compliance and/or acceptance regarding these oppressive conditions. These threats all stem from the same root cause: the tyranny of unchecked corporate power, in both the workplace and society, which now dominates the decision making of most nations.
So why am I supporting Senator Obama? While he has indicated his intention to take on the entrenched corporate power that threatens our democracy and our survival, there are few issues where I agree with Senator Obama on the specifics of the changes we need to bring about. However, there are four elements that I believe will need to be in place for any President to bring about the changes we need.
First, the President must be willing to take those actions that will enable that change. I can only hope that, based not just on Senator Obama’s rhetoric, but also his background with NYPIRG and as a community organizer in Chicago, that when given the chance he will rise to the occasion.
Second, to be elected as a Democrat in 2008, any candidate will need to generate a huge turnout that will overcome any attempts to steal the election. Senator Obama has demonstrated that he can inspire people to believe in something bigger than themselves. The young, independents, the dispossessed, even Republicans are flocking to his politics of meaning and hope. I believe he can turn out the numbers that no vote fixing will be able to stop.
Third, once elected, any President will need a significantly increased Democratic majority in Congress to ensure that there are enough votes to overcome the entrenched corporate interests within both the Republican and Democratic caucuses. This will only happen if Obama actually turns out the record number of voters that I believe he is capable of doing.
But fourth and most importantly, any President will need a movement made up of grassroots Americans who demand the changes we need. FDR was famous for looking at progressive proposals and telling those who supported them, “I support this, now go out and make me do it.” No President will make the changes needed, in the face of the corporate power that will attempt to block those changes, unless the American people rise up and force that change to occur. It is not enough to go to the polls on Election Day. Democracy demands more of us. It demands that we become effective participants in the day-to-day struggle for the legislation and polices we need to ensure our survival. The corporations are engaged in that participation on an ongoing basis. We can, and must, do no less.
Barack Obama may be able to put in place the first three elements required for the changes that are necessary. Only we can put that fourth element in place. |
| 352 | Jeff Wegerson | |
| 353 | Ivan Handler | |
| 354 | Dan Merkle | |
| 355 | Jerry Harris | |
| 356 | Anonymous | |
| 357 | Masaru Edmund Nakawatase | Very hopeful about this step in the development of the American left. Particularly like the positive tension between electoral work and independent community action; hope it can be sustained for the long term reconstruction of this nation. |
| 358 | Joseph T. Miller | Educator |
| 359 | Leisa Faulkner | |
| 360 | Emily | |
| 361 | Peter S. Lopez | Senor Obama is the best man running. Let us remember 2000 when Fuhrer Bush was elected! |
| 362 | Woody Haut | |
| 363 | Woody Haut | |
| 364 | Margie Bernard | |
| 365 | Nick Sharman | |
| 366 | Andy Berman | |
| 367 | Mitchell Aboulafia | |
| 368 | Timothy Sears | |
| 369 | Karen Iliff | He is the fresh new person we need running our country and will get us out of the mess the Bush administration made of our country. It's been a long time since we've had anyone with this caliber of intelligence and honesty in power. Last week I was one of the 75,000 people to see him in Portland. Incredible. |
| 370 | Roy Ulrich | |
| 371 | James W. Russell | |
| 372 | prexy nesbitt | |
| 373 | Carol Kurtz | |
| 374 | Don Lenzer | |
| 375 | Mark Harris | |
| 376 | Sharon Gelman | |
| 377 | Sharon Gelman | |
| 378 | Al Fishman | I'm a six-decade peace and justice activist and want to help the campaign in Michigan |
| 379 | janet bean | |
| 380 | Jennifer Dohrn | |
| 381 | donna magdalina | |
| 382 | Barbara Aguirre | Bro Bill, you're ALL OVER the map! and we're doing our best to spead the word. Many of us will see you on June 18.
Congratulations! |
| 383 | Darchelle M Garner | |
| 384 | Joseph T. Miller | Educator, Vietnam Veteran |
| 385 | Darril Tighe | I want the US out of Iraq as soon as possible. |
| 386 | Duane Campbell | I signed up some 6 weeks ago, but have not been added. |
| 387 | Malcolm Burnstein | |
| 388 | Michael Dover | While the mantra of independent political action is one I have long supported, we have seen some of the damage which ill-considered independent actions on behalf of Obama and in other electoral contexts can do. A forum for discussion and well-considered action is valuable, but I have been and plan to continue to be active directly within the campaign and its many sub-groups such as social workers for Obama. I might ad that those of us on the left are also part of the very "old politics" which Obama is trying to move beyond. Somewhere along the way since glasnost, the promised "new thinking" never happened. We too need to re-think the nature of the alternatives to neo-liberalism we put forward, lest they be more or less the same. Also, generationally, young activists are clearly thinking differently about all sorts of things we don't "get", such as the relationship of activism to volunteerism, just to give one example. What is progressive at one point of time is not necessarily progressive at another point of time, since the nature of progressive politics is historically contingent. If radical pragmatism isn't what progressives for Obama want out of President Obama, we should get in for a rude surprise, as I suspect that's what we are going to see, rather than the kinds of prototypical ideologically suggested responses and positions. Pragmatism is never popular, as it gores all sorts of sacred cows. |
| 389 | Kathy Engel | |
| 390 | Kim Kaufman | |
| 391 | Ted Pearson | |
| 392 | Orus Barker | |
| 393 | Ann Breen-Greco | |
| 394 | Teresa España | |
| 395 | Eloise Chevrier | |
| 396 | George Hunsinger | |
| 397 | jeff house | |
| 398 | Thomas Good | |
| 399 | David Jacobs | |
| 400 | Bob Guild | |